Expressing Sense of House That Access to Digital Communications Tools and Connectivity is Necessary to Prepare Youth

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, here is the situation: our kids are going to school, they are getting homework, and 70 percent of the teachers assign homework that presumes access to the Internet, but many of our kids don't have access to the Internet.

About 5 million, or one-third of households with school age children in the U.S., lack a high-speed connection at home. That is the ``homework gap.'' It creates a lot of anxiety, as well as some inability to get the homework done. And the anxiety for these kids is that they go home, they have got an assignment, they want to do it, and they don't have the tools. It puts enormous pressure on the parents.

We have seen some reports where, in order to address this outside of the school, they will park buses that have high-speed Internet access, and the parents will bring the kids back to school and sit outside while the kids sit on the bus where they have the homework connection.

That is asking a lot of our parents, it is asking a lot of our kids, and this resolution is just acknowledging what I think we all know is the obvious. That is, if kids are going to have a shot at getting ahead, if they are going to be able to do their homework, we have got to get that Internet access out in the area so we don't have 5 million kids without it.

It is such a real problem when you get into the rural areas, and that is where Mr. Latta and I know that, and the reason is because extending the broadband out into the rural areas is economically more of a challenge for some of our companies.

We believe that, ultimately, we have got to have Internet access, much like we did with electricity, where we make a policy that says we are getting that broadband to the last mile. This resolution demonstrates an ongoing bipartisan commitment to achieve that goal. I know, Mr. Speaker, you have a lot of rural areas in your district as well.

I urge my colleagues to support this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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